13. A Song in Great Difficulty
© 2019 Daniel YordyJanuary 1984 - August 1985
Finding My Song
A number of people from the Ridge were teachers in the Bowens Mill Christian school across the road. I had been invited on a couple of occasions to come down to a classroom and share with a class on this or that topic of my interest (mostly geography). For some reason I felt wrong about it inside and so declined the opportunity.
In late December, 1983, on a Saturday, as I was cutting brush out of a hedgerow along the lane into the Ridge, Brother Jim Fant came walking up to me. Brother Jim was the principal of the school that year. “Daniel,” he said to me, “A teacher in the school has just needed to pull out this Christmas break. We need an English teacher for the tenth grade. Let me know by supper if you want to do it, you will be starting on Tuesday.”
On January 3, 1984, I stepped into my first classroom. And in that room, with four eager tenth grade students, I found my calling in God. I was 27 years old.
My first four students were Glen Mosher from the Ridge, Dina LaFera and Ben Hawkins from Family Farm, and Andrea Knight from New Covenant. I was their English teacher. As I write these words, I know such profound joy and gratefulness.
I had found the singing of my heart. I loved working with young people. I loved books and curriculum and lessons. I loved teaching literature and grammar and writing. I loved the whole concept of teaching as an art and a skill. I loved every part of this new-found song; I had no idea before how much these things meant to me.
But most importantly, the classroom gave me a place. Behind my desk, I was the “teacher.” I knew my role, and I could function as the “teacher” in that role. I cannot express how important this is for Asperger’s. If I don’t have a “place” given to me by others, then I have no idea how to function. In this place, then, teenage girls talked to me as their teacher. I did not know it then, but it would be friendly and cheerful girls talking with me in the classroom setting, both here and later in college at Blueberry, that would coax me out of my defensive autistic shell bit by bit.
Since I was teaching only one class a day, I continued in my other functions at the Ridge. However, in March, there was a need for someone else to take on the 9th grade history class, so I added that to my day, and then by May, a third class opened to me. I don’t remember which that was. Before the end of the school year, I signed up to teach full time for the year 1984-1985.
I was 27 years old and had never been to college, but I am the kind of person that tackles a challenge like this with all enthusiasm. Many of my students counted me their best and favorite teacher. I don’t think it was because I knew what I was doing, but rather because I enjoyed their youthfulness and I cared.
Winding Down
For three years I had given myself wholeheartedly to the Ridge, to its needs and concerns. Then, beginning with my first class in January, 1984, I slowly attached my heart to the school and teaching, and disconnected it from the Ridge. This slow process covered most of that year.
In order to lessen my load in the men’s dorm, the elders at the Ridge added Richard Hernandez and Charlie Jones as “co-examples.” I was still the lead, but I could rely on them to cover many of the responsibilities. I am sad to say that I did not spend a lot of time with Richard through these years. We remained friends, but our lives unfolded in very different circles. The dorm was little more than a place to sleep. Someone else took on the milk cows, so I no longer had that task as part of my day.
Besides finishing the Ridge kitchen by August, a two-year job, I took on a number of remodeling tasks, including wallpapering in trailers and a couple of weeks spent under the Ridge Tabernacle, shoring up the floor with new supports. Much of this time I worked by myself. Contrasted with the joy of the classroom, working by myself became very lonely. During the summer of 1984, I also helped in the construction of two more cabins at the convention site, including the Dallas cabin.
Sometime in the middle of the summer of 1984, I made myself report on David Troshin’s unacceptable behavior, as was my responsibility. I was tired of giving these endless reports, and the utterly blank look on Brother Claude’s face, I interpreted as the statement of a profound “I don’t care.” Something snapped inside of me. I remained the dorm example until I left the Ridge the next June, but I never reported again. The men in the dorm could do whatever they wanted, I no longer cared.
A Twelve-Year Course
When I left the Ridge in June of 1985, I was leaving the move-of-God fellowship, deeply angry with God. Although the classroom remained my joy and my refuge, all other parts of my life became difficult. I will include more good things regarding my love of teaching, but through the remainder of this letter, I want to describe the great press of God squeezing me from every direction.
I now understand the necessity of God’s dealings with me; I certainly did not understand it then. As I look back now, I see that God was preparing me for a most confusing experience with Him during the April 1985 convention. In that convention He would begin a work inside of me that would not be finished until twelve years later, sitting in the same place in the same Bowens Mill Convention Tabernacle in late March of 1997.
When God spoke to me in late March of 1997, “Son, you passed the test,” I did not perceive everything God meant by that statement as I understand it now. Nonetheless, in recent years, as I will share with you later, these most difficult years of experience showed themselves to be the most important thing God has ever taught me. And as I set forth my soul for you, for your sake, I am convinced that God will use my difficulty for your blessing, that you will gain from Him the same thing He gave to me.
I fear God. – And I would suggest to you the immense value of possessing such a quality.
I will approach this final year more thematically than chronologically. I warn you that I must open myself up, in doing so, and share less attractive things. But I believe that God is using this present task of sharing my life story in this way, bringing the Mercy Seat of God into every difficult place. I am encouraged that this is part of my task in the turning of the ages and in the release of the knowledge of God into all the earth.
I began this account stating that God has no good reason to choose me; I have always been self-centered and self-willed. Yet God has chosen me contrary to reason. Part of my purpose is to show you why I make such an indefensible claim.
Contending with the Word
I have always contended with God concerning His word. And the word, whether preached or written, has always been central in my life. I have usually been unsuccessful at any “doing” of the word; nonetheless, I have never left off contending with God face to face regarding what He says.
Here are three short passages that were of great importance to me through these years, they held my heart and gave me something to keep hold of through the stinging blows.
Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread. He sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him (Psalm 105:16-19).
Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day… And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” … And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:24-28).
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. Surely He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day. …He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. He has set me in dark places… He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked - - - (Lamentations 3:1-9 and on).
And yes, Lamentations 3 was the most comforting Scripture in the Bible for me through these years, for this is a description of my life and these words showed me that God was in my affliction. Like Jacob, I wrestled with God concerning His word; as with Joseph, the word of the Lord tested me through fetters and irons until the time it would be fulfilled. And with Jeremiah, I wept. – You know, I can be melodramatic at times, but I am telling you the truth.
There was some contention regarding the word in the larger arena of the move. I now understand that this contention was actually caused by Buddy Cobb. Except for the conventions, however, Buddy Cobb had little direct involvement in my life. I will not bring him into resolution until the last chapter of my years in community, Blair Valley.
Nonetheless, when Buddy Cobb told me, through Janet Myers, that Sam Fife taught many things that were contrary to the truth, he was referring to all the things I learned from Sam Fife that I now teach to you. And all the things Buddy Cobb retained from Sam Fife in his own teaching are the things I speak against all through what I teach now. (See the list at the end of Chapter 9, “Cutting the Covenant.”)
Everyone looked to Buddy Cobb and trusted his apostolic leadership and the anointing of the Spirit that truly was upon him. In that context, that was the right thing to do in the Lord. God is not after the ideas we hold in our heads, but after the condition of our hearts. But what Buddy Cobb taught does not come into this history until those final years when I had surrendered all my objections and believed and taught the same as he.
Nonetheless, many still held to those things Sam Fife had taught; whereas others embraced the pure Calvinism of Buddy Cobb with all gusto.
There was a couple living at the Family Farm who were both elders, Tony and Maridel Tudelo. I had only a public and indirect relationship with them, nothing personally close. Nonetheless, they figure somewhat in this discussion and so I will bring them in by name.
A wonderful Bible teacher by the name of Ernest Watkins, who lived at the Hilltop Community in northern British Columbia, spent a couple of weeks at the Ridge giving a Bible teaching. Most of those at the Ridge attended his sessions, along with a few from the other communities. I believe he was teaching the history of Israel.
Well, Tony Tudelo was one who attended the Bible studies. Brother Ernest was good at raising questions without getting himself involved in any debate. Tony Tudelo loved to debate on the side of “you sin, you go to hell.” Few other preachers magnified the flesh as much as he did. As he stood in the Bible study to proclaim his “sin and death” message, Brother Jim Fant, who was also there through the teachings, could not keep quiet. He rose to his feet as well to assert that God by His grace keeps us, regardless of our difficulties.
The problem was that Sam Fife had preached both words. Under Buddy Cobb, however, “God keeping us by His grace,” was no longer in favor. Now it was up to us to “hear and obey.”
Another wonderful Bible teacher was Don Stockbridge, who lived at the New Covenant community. He had a gift to open up the Bible stories of the Old Testament as a view of Christ our life and the wondrous goodness of God.
I ran the sound system and taping of the services through most of my years at Bowens Mill. When Tony Tudelo stood to preach his “gospel of sin and death,” I was tempted to turn off his microphone. I did not, however. Nonetheless, after his messages, I always felt further from God. Acting from “the flesh” is the only result I have ever seen coming out from such a word. When Don Stockbridge set before us the beauty of Christ revealed in His kingdom, however, I was so enthralled that I was convicted of whatever “sin” might have been dragging me down. The fruit coming out from such a word was always to life. I made note of this great contrast, but I did not understand it.
Through this time a couple of Christian Jews, who had anointed ministries, connected with the move and preached in the conventions. One of them was Art Katz from Minnesota; I do not remember the name of the other.
Nonetheless it was the other Jewish brother who preached in a convention in 1984 that placed a great question upon my heart. He started his word with Solomon’s pessimism and lack of faith in Christ. “Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). Yes, we can draw wisdom out from Solomon’s words, but ONLY as those things are RULED by the gospel of Christ our life.
This brother was mightily anointed of the Lord, and his word was right in line with what Buddy Cobb preached. I was caught in the anointing and power of his words as he opened the heavens to us. Basically, his premise was that we must mourn over our sin and our falling short and that the only way out is to “hear and obey.” Nonetheless, God pours out His Spirit upon all humans, regardless, and this man was strong in his humanity and thus in the Lord.
As part of his word, the brother shared an experience he had. He enjoyed mountain climbing, and one time he had scaled a mountain in Switzerland. In all his experiences, he knew God with Him, and so he had my full attention. A storm came up and night fell. He could not see his way to safety, yet he was huge on God with him and he with God.
The brother heard God speak to him, “Walk down the mountain.” And he obeyed. He walked straight forward, every step in God, until he was in safety at the bottom of the cliff.
When he finished his word, I was transfixed and mesmerized. I was utterly overwhelmed. I looked at all the people getting in line for hot dogs after the service, and I could not understand. I handed David Troshin off to someone else and went straight home. I got on my face on the floor beside my bed. How could I know such a God? How could I ever do such a thing? If such “hear and obey” was required of me, if God were behind such an impossible barrier, what hope had I? Yet I contended with God there on the floor, for not ever knowing Him was impossible to me.
Teaching Full-Time
When I was doing something I loved, I had the tendency of taking on too much. When that happened, I would scale back just a bit until I was comfortable in full engagement. For the 1984-85 school year, I took on seven classes. That meant no off-period, not even lunch. For a while I supervised the lunch room as well and ate with the students.
First period, I taught 11th grade American History, the same four students I started with in January, along with four 10th graders and one 12th grade student. At the same time, I oversaw two 12th grade girls taking American government, Andrea LaFera and Michelle Gibbs. I will only give you some of the names, but please understand, these young people were most precious to me. (And I do have my lesson plan book, so this is not all out of memory.)
Second period I taught American Lit to 10th and 11th grade students. Third period was almost my favorite. I taught 8th grade English to two cute, smart, and cheerful girls, Angela Gerhardt and Christi Knight. I had so much fun with those two.
Fourth period I taught World History to the 9th grade class, along with some of the 10th graders, those who were not in American History. Fifth period I taught standard English to a mix of 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. Sister Ruth Mosher, my mentor through this time, was teaching a creative writing course that included the more capable English students. Finally, in the last period of the day, I taught boy’s carpentry skills. The students then went home at 3 PM.
These students became my life, and all my energy and thought was devoted to them. I continued sleeping in the men’s dorm at the Ridge and eating supper there in the Tabernacle. Breakfast I skipped because I was at my desk by 6 AM or so, preparing for the day, and one of my students from the Ridge, Janet Lee Klingbeil, made a lunch for me each day for the noon meal. I was too exhausted to do much school work from 3PM until supper, but in the evenings I felt better. After supper, I came back down to the school and worked on grading student papers, often until 10 PM.
The weekends, of course, I was at the Ridge, continuing to work there on various things. One thing we did was to pour a huge concrete septic tank for the Ridge community in the sandy bank just below the wood shop. But I did not like the weekends. Monday was always my favorite day because now I was back in my classroom for the week. This was my sentiment all the years I taught school in move communities.
I had no formal training in classroom teaching nor any experience of it prior to stepping into the classroom. I must have had a knack for it, though. We used the ABeka curriculum (which I do not recommend for a number of reasons), so I always had the text book to fall back on. I learned more than I realized at the time about teaching and learning, by practical experience. Nonetheless, one question that grew in me over the months was – How do you teach kids to think?
Let me share one experience that explains Asperger’s perfectly. I had taken on too much, so someone else took my place overseeing the student lunch hall. I then ate my lunch in my room, which was located as a wing at the back of the main community hall that you see in the picture in Chapter 7, “Into the South.” Nonetheless, the older girls liked to come into my room during lunch hour where they were free to chat easily among themselves and with me. I owe so much to the talkative girls who were now in my life; as I look back now, I see that their friendliness to me was a gift of God. Besides Dina LaFera, there was also her sister, Andrea LaFera, of Italian talkativeness, along with Michelle Gibbs, Sharon Stafford, Rachel Stansbery, and others.
You see, they did most of the talking. I wasn’t much good at talking back, so I was pretty much limited to smiles and, “Is that right.” But one day, I was out with them among the student desks. Andrea LaFera, a senior, was, as I think now, more mature in her expression, and so I was able to visit back with her. Meanwhile, Michelle Gibbs, seeing my empty chair behind my teacher’s desk, went over and sat down in it. Instantly, I lost my “place.” I no longer had a connection to meaning or purpose. I was adrift in a sea of chatting females, and all I could do was hold my breath and hope that nothing would be required of me. When Michelle bounced back up from my chair and came back around my desk, instantly, my place and purpose as “the teacher” came back to me, and I breathed a great sigh of relief.
I had no idea of it then, but this is a symptom of Asperger’s.
Sister Ruth Mosher, who lived at the Ridge with her husband, Bruce, and a whole passel of cute girls, younger and older than Glen, their only son, was the other high school English teacher. She was my mentor through this time, and I learned a lot from her. Only Glen was in the grades I taught. During that year she led her creative writing course of the more gifted 10th through 12th grade students in creating a class yearbook. They wrote a short piece on each student and teacher in the school as part of their creative writing. On the next page is the one written of me, I believe it was by Dina LaFera, one whom I carry close inside my heart. Along with it is my picture. You can see that I was skinny as a bean pole.
Maureen and Sheila
Maureen taught first grade. In fact, Maureen was teaching school before she graduated from high school. Here is her picture and the writeup for her by the creative writing class.
You can see how beautiful she is. Yet she was not talkative, and I could not talk with her.
And this was the word of the Lord that tried me through these years. The witness arising in my heart that Maureen would be my wife did not cease. Yet there was nothing outwardly. I attended many weddings while living at Bowens Mill. Over and over, I would watch a young man win the joy of his heart and be married, but I was incapable of doing the same.
But I cannot talk about the agony of my non-relationship with Maureen through this time without bringing Sheila Gerhardt into the same picture. Sheila was a tenth grader in my classroom, twelve years younger than I. She had been in one of my classes in the spring, and was in two of my classes through this full year. Sheila was incredibly cute, very intelligent, and talkative. Sheila loved to chat about anything and everything, and she didn’t mind chatting with me.
As I think about it now, I realize that Dina LaFera fitted the exact same description. The only difference was that Dina lived at the Family Farm, and so I saw her only at school, whereas Sheila lived at the Ridge, and I had known her and her family since I moved there. And as I said, I now realize that both Dina and Sheila were a wondrous gift from God to me. But Sheila was the only one from whom I gained any kind of friendship through my last year at the Ridge.
The Gerhardt’s lived in a trailer in the row to the left of the washhouse, their mother, Bonnie, who worked as a nurse in town, Sheila, Angela, whom I had in 8th grade, and Gary, who was a good tag-along little brother. The dad wanted nothing to do with the move; I believe they were divorced. During this time, Maureen had her bedroom with them in their trailer.
In May, at the same time that I first had Sheila in my class at the school, I worked at remodeling the Gerhardt trailer. Part of my work was in Maureen’s bedroom. I must confess that, in my loneliness, I did look through Maureen’s picture albums. I went no further than that. At the same time, I began to enjoy Sheila’s company. Like I said, she was bright, bubbly, and very talkative.
The thing is, I was becoming ANGRY with God. Why did God continue speaking to me about Maureen while, apparently, saying nothing whatsoever to her? This had been going on for three years, now. I was getting fed up with the agony. Nonetheless, my regard for Maureen did not diminish. Through the cold mornings of the winter time, I went into her classroom early each morning and lit her gas stove so that her classroom would be warm. When I ask her about it now, she says that she just thought someone lit the stoves in all the classrooms. She did not know that I was doing it for her.
My friendship with Sheila fitted into that emptiness. Although I certainly felt enamored of her, I never considered her as a “future companion.” She was way younger than I; neither did we share the same values. I must defend myself here, though, by asserting that nothing improper, either in word or in touch, ever occurred. We remained only friends, no matter what emotional trauma I felt.
There is no further experience for me to share regarding Maureen through this time. She was a closed door to me for seven long years.
A Great Press
The months from September 1984 through May 1985 were marked with two extremes, my love and joy for teaching and for my students on the one hand, and the entire “move” – “Ridge” – ministry structure on the other hand. I continued at Bowens Mill until the end of the school year only because I wanted to continue teaching and “Oh, I quit” will not open any doors.
By October, I had separated my heart completely from the Ridge. I was still present there when not in school, but I did not care. Then, by the end of 1984, I had separated my heart from the whole concept of a hierarchy of ministry. Let me give you the particulars. Now, these things were a big deal, yes, but they are also representative of a whole slew of little things.
More than that, I lived through these months in an intense disagreement with God. If you had asked me then, I would have claimed that, most of all, I had separated my heart from God. That was not actually true, however, for God had long since sealed me out from the valley of decision.
My workday began at 7:30 in the morning, with the arrival of students at the school. I went non-stop, no breaks whatsoever, until 3 in the afternoon, seven-and-a-half hours. Besides that, I put in around four hours each day of prep time, for a total of over eleven hours a day. I loved it, but it was exhausting. In contrast, with all the breaks and a long lunch, etc., a typical workday for most of the men at the Ridge was under seven hours. Because I was brain-dead in the late afternoon and because I was faced with a few more hours of work in the evening, I sometimes took a nap in my bed in the dorm before supper.
One day, not long into this regimen, David Troshin found me napping during “work time.” He gleefully went to Brother Claude to inform him that I was not “following the order.”
A question had been growing inside of me for some time, a question that would continue to grow until I screamed it to God at the top of my lungs during the April 1985 convention.
– Why don’t they ask? –
Not asking was part of move doctrine and practice and part of their definition of “ministry.”
Now, this is the part where I will place a shadow of bitterness upon the page. I am free to do so, because I now understand exactly what God was doing for me and how important all these things would be for you, that I would have this word of Christ our life to give.
Sam Fife had taught that an elder is anointed of God, that’s why they’re elders. They hear from God, and they move as Christ towards those who are not elders. On the other hand, those who aren’t elders are not elders because they are not yielded to the anointing, which means they are primarily “fleshy.”
More than that, John Hinson had taught the ministry at the Ridge that an elder never apologizes. God is speaking through them; to apologize is to allow their role to appear to be “not God.” This view, that non-elders are flesh, was more prevalent in the move than I knew at this time. Nonetheless, I watched various ones of the elders rebuke non-elders for their ideas and feelings as if the elder was “of God” and the non-elder was only “of the flesh.” Even Jim Fant, who was a man of grace, was caught in this absurd definition.
Buddy Cobb taught that ministry needs to have the word of the Lord; they need to “discern.” And when they speak, they speak the penetration of God into the fleshiness of the non-elder.
To ask would be to cater to “the flesh.” The terrible thing is, they were wrong more often than not, and the few times they were right in their guesses made them imagine that they were always right.
Another concept peculiar to the Ridge was that John Hinson taught them that the eldership is always one. If one elder says something, even in private, all the elders are one with that statement or action. Thus an elder can never be “wrong.”
Now these were godly people who loved the Lord and moved by the Spirit. I am not speaking of anything inappropriate or immoral.
Claude Mack did not ask. He came in, with David hovering gleefully behind him, got me out of bed and ripped me over the coals in full military regalia for napping during the work time. I could never stand against Claude Mack, though he was small of stature. Neither do I ever defend myself in such situations. I am typically unable to speak, and it usually takes me hours and days and months to finally figure out what on earth just happened.
In that moment, all connection to the Ridge or to its authority in my life ceased out from my heart. I did go to Brother Jim Fant and shared that experience with him. This was one of the few times when he broke with the norm in disagreeing with another elder.
Napping in my bed was no longer an option. To compensate, I found a small easy chair and put it in the back corner of my classroom along with a small table on which sat a coffee maker. Since I started work by 6 AM, I could make my coffee in my classroom. Then, in the late afternoon, I could nap sitting in the easy chair. Understand, this nap was vital to my ability to maintain the full load I was teaching.
A couple of months later, word got around to the elders of the three communities that Daniel Yordy had an easy chair in the back of his classroom. This was too “fleshy” to allow.
You see, every one of those elders had their own living rooms with their own easy chairs in which they sat most evenings in quiet and comfort. I had just the men’s dorm, a dozen men with a living room that would sit only four or five, one of whom was always David Troshin, who made sure that no one could be comfortable there.
No one asked me; they just told me to get rid of the chair.
For about five months, I napped in my teacher’s chair, with my head on the hard desk in front of me. I became immured to it, for that was the only way I could maintain my class load and the love and joy of my life, my care for my students.
A couple with a long history in move community, but who were not elders, Jeff and Nancy Nalley, had moved to the Ridge just before I started teaching school. Their son, John, was in my classroom. One evening, I stopped in their home after supper to visit. I felt so secure and comfortable in a family living room and home. But after a bit, Jeff said he had to prepare for his one class the next day; it was time for me to leave. I walked on down to the school in the dark. The contrast between his warm home and my lonely desk that night was a bit much.
The Agony of Disrespect
Of far greater agony to me, however, was the disrespect shown to the young people in the communities. This was not just a “move thing,” for I have seen the same in public schools and in other Christian schools.
I was twenty when I became a part of this fellowship of Christian communities; I had come in by choice as an adult. Now, for the first time, I was on the receiving end of the teenagers growing up, not by choice, under the doctrine of “die to your flesh.”
I will give three instances that are reflective of an ongoing climate of disrespect that was a normal part of treating teenagers in move community schools. This would be one of the three primary reasons why I chose to leave that fellowship. I saw the same practice looming over my own children, and I would not have it. Again, my children assure me that Maureen and I are different, that this is the same way most Christian parents raise their children. It’s how most humans raise their children; it’s certainly not peculiar to the move.
I had been directing the after-school work of two young men who lived at the Ridge, Bobby and Chip. I had both of them in my ninth grade class at school. But when I started teaching full time, I was no longer there to do that. The elders then asked Jeff Nalley to step into that role. Within a few days Bobby and Chip were coming to me in utter desperation. Jeff was treating them like dirt, accusing them of all sorts of things and not trusting them or what they might say or do at all. There was little I could do, but they kept coming, getting more desperate. I had the opportunity to observe and was aghast at the things beings spoken against them.
It’s not that they had it easy with me; I did make them work. But I also respected and enjoyed them as persons, and they knew the difference. I went to Brother Jim and shared their dilemma with him, with evidence. Brother Jim was an honorable man, and Jeff Nalley was soon assigned to other tasks. Sadly, this kind of conduct was all too common, elders or non-elders.
I had Janet Lee Klingbeil from the Ridge in two of my classes. She also was one who often found refuge in my classroom during lunch. One day, one of the elders in the school, Maridel Tudelo, accused Janet Lee of some wicked thing. Janet Lee was completely innocent, but Maridel would not hear it. She persisted and I think she took it to the larger three-farm elders’ meeting. Janet Lee was beside herself with distress, something she was free to share with me. Her mother was one who had struggled with mental issues in the past. I do not remember the outcome for Janet Lee, but she was stronger than her mother and came through it okay. Again, this type of treatment towards the teenagers was all too common.
It is not wrong for me to be angry over this kind of stuff. I know that it distresses our Father.
That he might turn the hearts of the fathers to the children – that he might turn the hearts of the fathers to the children – lest I come and strike the earth with a curse (Malachi 4).
The third occurrence happened just after the April Bowens Mill convention. Sheila had attended a young people’s gathering after the convention and was greatly touched by the Lord. Her heart softened, but as she basked in this new-found desire to know the Lord the next day, while working in the kitchen at the Ridge, one of the lady elders came through. This elder remembered some minor infraction Sheila had committed prior to this experience. She proceeded to rake Sheila over the coals without any modicum of respect or compassion. That was the final straw for Sheila, she was gone from the move, at age 16, just a couple of months later; I doubt that she has ever looked back.
It was also just one more of those final straws for me. Again, these are three examples of things these children struggled with on a regular basis.
Rock Bottom
I must back up a couple of months prior to the April convention to share with you my rock-bottom experience during this time. But in order to do that, I must bring in another aspect of life in move community.
Brother Sam had moved as a mighty deliverance ministry. When I get to Blueberry, I will share with you Jane Miller’s story. Sam Fife had prayed over her for deliverance in the mid-sixties and set her free from multiple schizophrenia and out from a padded cell for life. The tape of her deliverance became a classic in the move.
Sapa had been a deliverance farm, but deliverance there was a ministry practiced in private and only with the elders. At Blueberry, Sister Jane made deliverance a ministry of the whole family.
I think that the ministry at the Ridge did conduct deliverance services a few times in the privacy of the Hinson trailer, but I knew nothing about it. Brother Jim taught that we had to stand for our own deliverance in refusing to heed demonic voices. A great emphasis was placed, rightly, on singing praises in the midst of spiritual assault.
At the time, I rejected absolutely the idea that any “demon” might have anything to do with me. I was too much “in control of myself” to tolerate such “nonsense.” Nonetheless, as I shared earlier, I lived for fifteen years, from the time I overdosed on LSD at age 16, with unending torment gripping me in the gut. A wonderful word preached or a revelation from the Lord would relieve that torment for a few days, but back it would come, never having lost its grip. Part of my reason for spending my days in fantasy worlds was to escape this torment. Nonetheless, I have never been one to come under control to anything. No hypnotist could affect me.
During my hardening of my heart against God through these months, I had a desperate encounter with demons.
A young man from Juarez had come to stay at the Ridge. In my mind he was ugly, and in the dorm I saw his obnoxious side. But he was a great lady’s man, and he soon tacked onto Sheila. We had a gathering at one of the other communities, and there I saw him, sitting in the row next to Sheila, and they were chatting merrily.
I went home in a cloud of darkness. I was bitter, and I hated the man. I went to sleep with my heart filled with hate. When I awoke in the night, my jaw was clenched so tightly I was in pain. At the same time, something let loose inside, other persons inside my bubble of self, screeching their mockery at me. I was well aware that I was at the door of “mental illness.”
The truth is, however, all my “disconnection with God” was in my imagination only. At that moment, I grabbed hold of Jesus with all my might and sang, “The Blood of Jesus,” over and over. It did not take long before, “Pow,” they were gone. I had looked again into darkness and rejected what I found there.
The young man did not remain long and was soon gone, probably by the April Convention.
A Very Strange Convention
During that convention of April, 1985, I had an ongoing and very puzzling experience with God. It is something I have long pondered and which I am still placing into my understanding.
I was angry with God regarding Maureen. I was finished with the Ridge. I wanted nothing more to do with the move. Yet I continued for my students’ sake and because I was determined to finish the school year.
That doesn’t mean that I did not have a relationship with God or that I did not continue in grace and in good conduct. It does mean that I was having an ongoing series of angry conversations with God over all the inequities I saw in community as devised by Sam Fife, Buddy Cobb, and John Hinson. I was in community because community has filled my heart all my life. But something was missing, and I did not know what that was.
I wept over what community ought to be. Another elder by the name of Paul Putnam had moved to the Ridge several months before, with his wife, Helen. He was a good man who wanted to be life and help in the lives of people in need. I saw the same sorrow upon his face as he realized that his heart was not shared by others. “Follow the order” was the only answer allowed. I thought about pouring out my concerns to Brother Paul, but I did not.
Again, through the months leading up to the April convention, I had engaged in many “fleshy” arguments inside my “carnal” mind regarding all that I thought was “wrong.” I was in distress, and I was finding no answers.
Then I sat down in the convention. It seemed to me, in word after word, that I was the one who had written the script for what God wanted to say through this convention. Preacher after preacher shared out from my arguments against God, giving my “solutions” to the congregation as God’s solutions. I was flabbergasted. How could my fleshy agony be God speaking?
But something yet remained. The biggest thing of all. That Saturday evening, I walked home after the service alone. As I crossed the bridge over the creek, I paused and turned up to God. I raised my fist in anger against Him. “What about this?” I cried. “What are You going to do about this – about precious ones struggling in loneliness and despair and no one comes, no one asks. People are dying in this community, God,” I cried, “and the ministry does not see.”
You see, I was not the only one in this same distress. It was, in fact, “normal” for the Ridge.
The next morning, the last service of the convention, a Sunday, Brother John Hinson, the leading ministry of the Ridge, got up to share. His first words were, “God came to me in a dream last night and told me that people are dying in my community and I am not paying attention.” The dream and his interpretation were much more detailed than that; it was an experience of the finger of God coming against someone who has placed himself over others in the church. It was everything I had yelled against God.
I was utterly astonished, to say the least. How could God pass from my angry words to His hand in the visions of the night against a leading ministry in the move?
I do not think more highly of myself than is right. And what is right is that I have failed at everything. Nonetheless, this was a mighty piece of evidence in God’s years-long campaign to persuade me to trust the it is He who is speaking inside of me.
Yet at the same time, He has also caused me to know that every time I think I am “right” about someone else’s “problem”; I am always wrong. Embarrassingly WRONG.
It is in writing these things, however, that I can see so many things falling into their place, as they have been all along, a straight arrow shot of the dealings of God in my heart.
The issue of God and the serpent, the issue of Moses and Korah, the issue of David and Absalom, the issue of Christ with those who go forth in His name is – how do you respond when those who are “over you” in any way do what you think is wrong?
This convention marked the beginning of a twelve-year assault of God against that thing inside of me that could not remain – contempt. Or, as Gene Edwards puts it in A Tale of Three Kings, “What do you do when someone throws a spear at you?”
At the end of twelve years, in the same part of the same convention Tabernacle, God spoke to me, “Son, you passed the test.” I can now see that, here at the beginning of the hammering of God, beating and beating the mercy seat of my heart into its shape, my Father was showing me, “My son, I am with you, part of you, even in your greatest agony.” God’s real test is completely different from what they all claim.
Sadly, nothing came from John Hinson’s dream, at least nothing that I knew about.
Preparing to Leave
Sometime through here, maybe in April, I received a letter in the mail from Sister Judy Jones whom I had known at the Albuquerque Farm. In that letter, she invited me to come to the Blueberry Christian Community, where she was an elder. She also set out the possibility of my enrolling in the college the move fellowships had recently started, Covenant Life College.
I knew I was deficient in the teaching craft, and I longed to learn in a disciplined way. I put this invitation out there in front of me; nonetheless, I wanted nothing more to do with the move. The letter did, however, smooth over my request to the elders to return home to Oregon.
I had also heard from my mom. Dad was declining in health, and she needed help at home, particularly in putting a new roof on our house. She said that she would pay me for my time.
When I shared with the Ridge elders that my mom needed me at home for a season after which I was thinking about college at Blueberry, they were fully agreeable with my leading.
I asked my mother if she could see to sending me my wages for replacing the roof so that I could buy a car and have the means to get home. She sent me about $2500, and in May, I bought a Toyota Corolla station wagon from George Hawkins for $1500. I also went to town and purchased an Alpine tape deck and speakers, giving me a top-notch sound system for my car.
Because I had been teaching American literature, a desire to read all the great books had been reborn in me. Someone from the New Covenant community had given me an entire set of the Great Books, and I had begun with reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
I built boxes for all my stuff to prepare for the trip home. I had a lot of stuff.
Of course, I did not want to drive straight home. I wanted to spend time with Richard in Denver City, Texas, and then see parts of the country I had not yet seen. I got me a large road atlas and began plotting my meandering trip across the country. There was a problem, though. I wanted to go through places I had not yet been. The question then was, where have I been?
The solution was obvious – color in every single US county in which I have passed since I was twelve. I spent some happy hours down in my classroom, remembering the exact routes I had gone and filling in all the counties.
And so my most peculiar hobby began – I collect counties. Every time I plan a trip, I pull out my map of all the counties of the US and, if I can, chose a route that takes me through counties not yet colored in. At the end of most every trip, I get to fill in a bunch more counties.
I was still lonely, and I wanted Sheila to go with me. I wasn’t thinking straight, of course, but God was with me even though I was trying my best to exclude Him. I finally found the courage and the moment to ask her. She laughed in a silly way and kept on chattering about a totally different subject. So much for that. Sheila left the Ridge the day after school was over; she moved up to be with some relatives in Maryland.
I stayed on to be part of the graduation of the senior class, three of whom I had taught. It was a very good time, a good closing of my new-found joy of teaching school.
Another brother at the Ridge, Claude Savard, also wanted to go on up to Blueberry. He asked to ride with me at least as far as Oregon. He agreed to help me replace the roof on my parents’ house. We loaded my little station wagon full, inside and on top, said our “Goodbye’s” at the Ridge, and headed down the road that would eventually take us to home in Oregon.
A Sad Failure
I must share here one of my many failures in life. During this time of "trying to escape," I lied to Brother Jim Fant. In fact, that lie was probably the last words I spoke to him while he was a godly covering over me. This was a man who treated me with kindness the entire four-and-a-half years I walked with him. And the wisdom he imparted to me fills my present relationship with God. There is a time, entirely inside of the Lord Jesus, to be utterly ashamed of one’s self and to weep tears of Godly sorrow. This is one of those times.
I was finished with “the move,” and as I was preparing to leave, I bought a music tape that contained “Christian rock” music. The elders had heard of this and brought me into an elder’s meeting.
There I was, sitting in the elder’s meeting – Jim and Joyce Fant, Claude and Roberta Mack, Susan Jacobsen, Paul Putnam and others, brothers and sisters in Christ of high regard and of poured out lives. Brother Jim said to me, “I heard that you have bought a music tape of rock music. I am very disappointed; could you explain yourself.”
I felt like a dear caught in the headlights. Then I remembered that there was one good song on that tape, a song that had been sung recently by a sister in the fellowship. I said, “I got it in order to enjoy that one song.” I lied. – Why did I lie?
I could claim that I lied because I was embarrassed and did not want the elders to think that I was a “fleshy” person. But that would be just another lie. I lied because I wanted to control Brother Jim's thoughts towards me.
“Oh my Father, and Brother Jim, forgive me. What I did was cruel and wrong.” I know now that rebuilding trust with Brother Jim Fant will be a joy in my future, even in the resurrection.
The Mercy Seat
You can see the bitterness that would fill my heart for the next three years until God removed it from me during the deliverance time at Blueberry. I now see God’s good purpose for it.
Nonetheless, I cannot just open up this difficult time and then “go my way.” Everyone must be drawn into the Mercy Seat; everything must be released into goodness. The shaping of God’s heart to fit yours and the shaping of your heart to fit God’s is the only truly meaningful thing happening in your life. It is my continual covenant with God that He will take from my life and cause you to share Hheart with Him.
“Father, I now know that the removal of Korah from my heart is the greatest gift of Your hammering that You have given to me. Yet You, Father, were with me there in my cries and in my agony. My distress was already being shaped by Yours.”
What kind of a God shares fully the agony of the human soul, Heart together with heart?
[Note: as I look through the pictures of each of my students, speaking their names out loud, I realize that Sheila is simply one of them. More than that, each of these are now in their early fifties. I have only heard news of a couple through the years and seen only a couple since I taught them in school. Nonetheless, they each remain a part of my heart, and I will place them, with all confidence, into the Heart of God.]
“Father, You and I share Hheart together, Your Mercy Seat, the throne of heaven. The Blood of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is sprinkled here upon my heart, as You say it is. Father, I draw each one of these who were my students at Bowens Mill, each one by name, into Your Love that You share with me, inside of me. Father I know that You also carry each one of them. Father, I place Your seal upon each one, that You would capture their hearts, that You would keep them with power into Your arising. I thank You, my Father, for I am confident that You have done all that I ask.
“Father, I also ask You to cleanse me from any wrongness found in my needy connection to Sheila. Thank You, Father, that the Blood sprinkled upon my heart cleanses me.”
“And Father, I pray for John Hinson, along with the ministry at the Ridge, although many are now in the heavens only. Certainly they made mistakes, as I have made mistakes. Yet You turn all our mistakes into unending goodness. Father, I give You thanks for the role John Hinson played in my life. I give You thanks for the testimony of Christ that he was to me.
“Father, I am astounded and amazed that You shared all of my agony with me, in every moment and through every step. I am astounded and amazed that You have always placed Yourself beneath of me, that You have always lifted me up.
“And each one who contributed to that agony of this time, Tony and Maridel Tudelo, Claude Mack, Darryl Cobb, Jeff Nalley, the young man from Juarez, I place each one and all others into You, Father, into the Love that fills my heart to overflowing. Father, they are free of me to arise into Your joy and peace.
“Father, You are good, all the time.